Lili Damita

Lili Damita
Born	Liliane Marie Madeleine Carré (1904-07-10)10 July 1904 Blaye, Gironde, Aquitaine, France
Died	21 March 1994(1994-03-21) (aged 89) Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.
Resting place	Oakland Cemetery, Fort Dodge, Iowa, U.S.
Other names	Lily Damita, Lily Deslys
Years active	1922–1937
Spouse(s)	Michael Curtiz (1925–1926; divorced) Errol Flynn (1935–1942; divorce) Allen Loomis (1962–1983; divorce)
Children	Sean Flynn (May 31, 1941; disappeared/MIA April 6, 1970)

Lili Damita (10 July 1904 – 21 March 1994) was a French-American actress and singer who appeared in 33 films between 1922 and 1937.

Early life and education

Born Liliane Marie-Madeleine Carré in Blaye, France, she was educated in convents and ballet schools in several European countries, including France, Spain and Portugal. At 14, she was enrolled as a dancer at the Opera de Paris.

As a teenager, she was performing in popular music halls, eventually appearing in the Revue at the Casino de Paris. She worked as a photographic model. Offered a role in film as a prize for winning a magazine beauty competition in 1921, she appeared in several silent films before being offered her first leading role in Das Spielzeug von Paris (1925) by Hungarian-born director Michael Curtiz. She was an instant success, and Curtiz directed her in two more films: Fiaker Nr 13 (1926) and Der Goldene Schmetterling (1926). Damita continued appearing in German productions directed by Robert Wiene (Die Grosse Abenteuerin; 1927), G.W. Pabst (Man Spielt nicht mit der Liebe; 1926) and British director Graham Cutts (The Queen Was in the Parlour; 1927).

Career

In 1928, at the invitation of Samuel Goldwyn she went to Hollywood, making her American debut in a film titled The Rescue. Leased out to various studios, she appeared with stars such as Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant and James Cagney. Her films included the box office successes The Cock-Eyed World (1929), the semi-silent The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929) and This Is the Night (1932).

Personal life

Lili Damita and husband Errol Flynn at Los Angeles airport, 1941

In 1935, she married a virtual unknown who would become Hollywood's biggest box office attraction, Errol Flynn, with whom she had a son, Sean Flynn (born 1941). Following the marriage, she retired from the screen. The couple divorced in 1942. (Barbara Hershey portrayed Damita in the TV film My Wicked, Wicked Ways [1985] based on Errol Flynn's autobiography.) While living in Palm Beach, Florida, Damita married Allen Loomis, a retired Fort Dodge, Iowa dairy owner, and spent part of each year living there.

During the Cambodian Civil War (Khmer Rouge reign), her son Sean Flynn was working as a freelance photo journalist under contract to Time magazine when he and fellow journalist Dana Stone went missing on the road south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on 6 April 1970. Although Damita spent an enormous amount of money searching for her son, he was never found, and in 1984 he was declared legally dead. DNA testing was conducted on remains found in Cambodia and turned over to the U.S. authorities there in March 2010. However, the results, released 30 June 2010 by JPAC, showed the remains were not those of Sean Flynn or Dana Stone.

Age and nationality

On the manifest of the SS Bremen, sailing from Cherbourg on 5 September 1929, Damita's age is given as 25, and on the SS Paris sailing from Le Havre, France, on 14 November 1934, her age is given as 30, both indicate that she was born in 1904. She later shaved four years off her age, including on her Petition for Naturalization (United States, # 127601), dated December 17, 1945, which was granted on 10 May 1946, giving her year of birth as 1908.

Death

Lili Damita died of Alzheimer's disease on 21 March 1994, in Palm Beach, Florida, aged 89. She was interred in the Oakland Cemetery in Fort Dodge, Iowa, her husband's hometown.

Selected filmography

Promotional photo of Lili Damita and Victor McLaglen for The Cock-Eyed World

Lili Damita & Gary Cooper in Fighting Caravans.

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1922	Maman Pierre		Silent film
1922	La belle au bois dormant		Silent film
1922	L'Empereur des pauvres	Riquette
1922	La fille sauvage	Henriette Villedieu	Silent film
1922	The Clairvoyant
1923	Corsica
1924	Une femme dans la nuit
1925	Prince Charming
1925	Das Spielzeug von Paris	Célimène aka Susana Armard
1926	Cab No. 13 (Fiaker Nr. 13)	Lilian
1926	Secrets of a Soul (Geheimnisse einer Seele)		Uncredited
1926	The Golden Butterfly (Der goldene Schmetterling)	Lilian
1926	One Does Not Play with Love (Man spielt nicht mit der Liebe)	Calixta
1927	The Queen Was in the Parlour	Prinzessin Nadya von Kraya
1927	The Famous Woman (Die berühmte Frau)	Sonja Litowskaja
1928	The Great Adventuress
1928	Scandal in Paris
1929	The Rescue	Lady Edith Travers
1929	The Bridge of San Luis Rey	Camila (La Perichole)
1929	The Cock-Eyed World	Mariana Elenita
1930	Let Us Be Gay (Soyons gais)	Kitty
1931	The Bachelor Father (Le père célibataire)		alternate language version
1931	Fighting Caravans	Felice
1931	The Woman Between	Julie Whitcomb
1931	Friends and Lovers	Mrs. Alva Sangrito
1932	This Is the Night	Germaine
1932	One Hour With You (Une heure près de toi)	Mitzi Olivier
1932	The Match King	Marta Molnar
1933	Goldie Gets Along	Goldie LaFarge
1934	Man Stolen	Annette
1935	Brewster's Millions	Rosalie La Rue
1935	Frisco Kid	Belle Morra
1936	The Devil on Horseback	Diane Corday
1937	Escadrille of Chance	Edwige

Selected stage musicals

• On Dit Ça, Paris (1923)
• Sons o'Guns, New York (1929/30)
• Here's How, London (1934)

Bibliography

• Bermingham, Cedric Osmond (1931). Stars of the screen 1931: A volume of biographies of contemporary actors and actresses engaged in photoplay throughout the world. London, UK: Herbert Joseph.
• "Lily Damita". Stars of the Photoplay. Chicago: Photoplay Magazine. 1930.

External links

• Lili Damita at IMDb
• Lili Damita at the Internet Broadway Database
• Photographs of Lili Damita dead link
• Photographs and literature